Diary of a Mad Brownie

by Bruce Coville

  The evening started off well enough, with Alex bringing me some milk and biscuits. Only when I called them biscuits, she laughed and said they were cookies.

  Despite the silly name, I quite liked the “cookies,” which were chocolate with white cream inside. Perhaps not everything in this country is barbaric after all. About half of one is all I could manage, though. Even at that I felt stuffed. The things are bigger than my head!

  Alex ate the other half of mine, along with four or five more.

  While I was working on my half cookie, she said to me, “Angus, how did you get here from Scotland? Did you fly?”

  “Do I look like I have wings?”

  “No need to be snippy!”

  “Sorry. It was a hard trip. I came through the Enchanted Realm.”

  That was the first slip, as I’m nae supposed to speak of the Realm to humans. But once it was out of my mouth, I had to explain. Between letting myself be seen by Ms. Kincaid and now this, I fear I’ve become a right renegade.

  Well, anyway, I began to tell about my journey through the Enchanted Realm. Alex listened with wide eyes. When I got to the part about needing to cross the Shadow Sea and started to tell her about the selkie, she burst out with, “Wait! Are you telling me selkies are real?”

  “I’m real, aren’t I? Why should a selkie be any more surprising than a brownie?”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if trying to take this in. “Is everything real? I mean, all the things in the old stories? Like, oh, mermaids and goblins and trolls and…well, everything?”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “Can I ever meet some?”

  “Well, I don’t know what sorts you have in the Enchanted Realm about here.”

  “You mean there’s part of the Enchanted Realm here in America?” she asked, all excited.

  “Oh, aye. Why should there be magic in one part of the world and not others? Sure, and it’s stronger in some places, like my dear old Scotland. But there’s no place totally void of it.”

  She looked delighted at this idea.

  Then she asked the question that led me to say what I should not have.

  “How did you end up bound to my family?”

  “It’s a long story,” I replied without thinking. “And it starts long ago, with a lad named Ewan McGonagall. Why don’t you go onto that intermagoogle thing you’ve told me about and see if you can find the tale of what happened to him?”

  The moment the words left my flapping yap, I knew I had made a dreadful mistake.

  Once Alex knows the story, she will also know about the curse.

  She will know, too, that I have brought it with me into this house.

  The Tale of Ewan McGonagall

  from Legends, Lore, and Lunacy of the Scots People

  by Jane Hyatt Stemple

  Once in a Highland Village, there lived a lad who met a strange creature, and made a strange mistake, and suffered a strange fate.

  His name was Ewan McGonagall, and on the day he was born, Fiona Duffy, the village wisewoman, said, “Och, he’s an odd one, likely to be a burden to his mother’s heart and a bane to his father’s wishes.”

  Alas, her words proved true, for the lad was as full of mischief as a hive is full of honey. He was an ear tweaker and a pigtail puller, an ink spiller and a plate breaker. His poor mother spent hours praying for something to improve the boy, but her prayers went unanswered.

  He was even more of a bother to his father, for he could no more tend a flock than a brick can darn a sock, and the best he could do with a hammer was sometimes not hit himself in the head with it.

  The one thing he could do, and do well, was sing. Oh, when he sang, busy men would stop to listen, birds would cease their warbling, and snarling dogs would come to lie silent at his feet. It was not just his voice. He had a wondrous way with words, and the songs he sang were his own, unlike any ever heard before. It was as if poetry flowed in his veins.

  Even the faerie folk loved to hear Ewan sing…loved it a bit too much, for that was why they decided to lure him into the Enchanted Realm, which was how the trouble began.

  It happened on a moonlit night, when the youth had tarried too long at a friend’s. As he was homeward traipsing, he spotted a silver path wending among the trees. “That’s the road for me,” he said to himself, and off he started. But before he had gone very far, he heard a small voice cry, “Oh, woe! Oh, woe! Is there none who can help me?”

  Looking up, he saw an owl perched on the branch of a tree. The bird was standing on one leg. Clutched in the talons of the other leg was a little man no more than a foot high. From the way the owl was looking at the man, it was clear to Ewan it would be but a moment before the poor fellow was inside the owl, rather than outside.

  At once the lad began to sing about how the owl no more wanted to eat the little man than it wanted to have its wings taken away. The bird listened, and on the third verse it swooped down to drop the wee fellow at Ewan’s feet, then soared off into the moonlight.

  Ewan knelt to look at the little man and saw, by both his size and his clothing, that he was a brownie.

  Making a bow to Ewan, the brownie said, “For saving me from that great beast, you have my gratitude, and more than that my promise to serve you when you are in need.”

  Ewan thought it unlikely that anyone this small could do him much good in times of trouble. Still, he was a polite lad, so he said, “I thank you for that, my wee friend. But right now I am bound on following this moonlit road to see where it may lead me.”

  “Straight to trouble would be my guess,” said the brownie, “for this is sure a path to the Enchanted Realm, which is nae place for humanfolk.”

  “Still and all, I feel I must follow it,” said Ewan.

  “Then follow it with you will I, for my life is bound with yours.”

  And sure enough the path, silver in the moonlight, takes Ewan and the brownie straight to Dunloch Hill, which was well known in the village as a place not to go. And wasn’t the hill open at its root? And didn’t the path lead right inside, shining still even when it was well out of the moonlight? And despite all that, didn’t Ewan McGonagall walk right in as if he had not an ounce of sense in his head, which most folk thought was the case anyway?

  And wasn’t the merriment in the hill in part because they had lured Ewan to their midst, and in part because the Queen of Shadows was there as well, dressed in black and hard to see save for the great ruby that glittered at her neck?

  “There you are, Ewan McGonagall!” said the Lord of the Hill when he spotted Ewan. “We’ve been hoping you would visit us some moonlit night. We’ll have a song if you will, and even if you won’t, for there’s no way you’ll be leavin’ without some singing first.”

  “There’s no need to threaten,” replied Ewan, “for I’m more than happy to give you a song.” And straightaway he began to sing.

  If words had always come easy to Ewan, they now came easier than ever. And if his voice had always been honey sweet and silk smooth, it was even more so now. Too sweet and smooth for his own good, for when he had sung seven songs, the Lord of the Hill said, “You must no more go out in the world, for we need your singing here.”

  “I am thankful of the compliment,” Ewan answered. “But I must go back, or me ma and me da will be a worrittin’ over me.”

  “Will you not stay for me, singer?” asked a soft voice. Then from behind the Queen of Shadows stepped her daughter, the Princess of Sunshine, who was as bright as the queen was dark, with flowing hair of gold and glowing eyes of blue.

  “Nae, nae, I canna stay,” said Ewan sadly, for his heart was filled with sudden longing for the girl. With the brownie still by his side, he turned and left the hill. But not all of him came home that night, for a part of his heart remained in the Enchanted Realm, held tight in the grip of the girl who had stolen it with just one glance.

  After a week of sighs and moaning, Ewan said to the brownie, “I must go back to the hill.”


  “If you go in once more, out again you’ll never come,” said the brownie. “But I will take a message for you, if you wish, for I can come and go in the Enchanted Realm as I please.”

  So Ewan asked the brownie to tell the daughter of the Queen of Shadows that he wished to sing for her as he has never sung for anyone, would she but come to meet him. Off the brownie went with the message, leaving Ewan to swoon and swan about the town, singing such woeful songs that the flowers wilted, the birds hid their heads beneath their wings, and the cows gave naught by sour milk.

  About the time the townfolk were ready to send him into the woods so they could stop crying themselves to sleep at night, the brownie returned with word that the Princess of Sunshine was pining with love for Ewan, just as he was pining for her, but she could not come to him, for her mother had locked her away.

  Now Ewan’s songs were sweet but melancholy, for he was filled with joy at the thought that she loved him, but sadder than ever that they were apart and he could not feed her words of gold.

  At last he went to the village schoolmaster and asked the old man to write down his words. Then he sang a song so sweet and sad that the teacher’s eyes dropped tears upon the paper as he wrote.

  The gift of the poem ready, once more the brownie carried the message into the hill.

  Long was he gone, and the longer he tarried, the more Ewan’s heart was wrung within him. What had happened? What was happening?

  Just when Ewan thought he could bear the waiting no more, the brownie reappeared, carrying a note from the Princess of Sunshine.

  Now for many a month did this go on, with the brownie taking messages back and forth, back and forth. And with each message both the joy and the sorrow of the young lovers was heightened. Finally one day the brownie came to Ewan and said, “The Queen of Shadows wishes to see you. Though I would advise you against going once more into the hill, I have no choice but to deliver this message.”

  “Into the hill I go!” replied Ewan without a second’s thought.

  So that night the brownie led him back to Dunloch Hill. Once inside, Ewan found the Queen of Shadows waiting with her daughter, who was now little more than a shadow herself.

  “Ewan McGonagall!” said the queen, her eyes ablaze and her voice fierce as bee stings. “We made a mistake by inviting you into our world, that I know now. But you have made a greater mistake in not leaving it be. Had you bid us farewell and nevermore tampered here, things might yet have been well. But with the help of this interfering brownie, you have wrought great damage. Now my child, who is the light of my life, is losing light herself. So tonight I give you a choice. You may take my daughter to be your wife, if in return you surrender your greatest gift as bride price.”

  “Oh, Mother, no!” gasped the fairy girl.

  But the queen ignored her and said, “Tell me, Ewan McGonagall, for I need to know the extent of your love. What shall it be, my daughter or your singing?”

  Ewan did not hesitate but said at once, “Your daughter is worth all the songs that ever were or ever will be.”

  “Then she is yours,” said the queen. “But in taking her from my side, you and that brownie both earn my curse. And the curse I lay upon you, Ewan McGonagall, will echo through your generations. And the curse I lay upon this wretched brownie is to be the bearer of that curse. He shall be bound to you and your descendants until the day one of them returns to me that which you have stolen, and will carry the curse with him into each home he enters.”

  With that, the queen released her daughter, who ran to Ewan’s arms. And though the girl sorrowed much that he could no longer sing, she knew his heart from the songs she had heard already, and knew it was that heart that she had come to love.

  So the two of them, the human lad and the fairy girl, loved together for long and long, though he grew old and she did not. And they had a daughter, radiant as the sun, but with the voice of a crow.

  When the time came for Ewan to leave this earth, he did so willingly, feeling he had lived long and well. But the Princess of Sunshine, unwilling to return to the Enchanted Realm, began to wander, and wanders still for all I know.

  And that is the tale of Ewan McGonagall.

  Wednesday, October 28

  “Angus Cairns, I want to talk to you!”

  These were the first words out of Alex’s mouth as she slammed into the room this afternoon.

  She sounded quite like her mother.

  I had no need to ask what she wanted to talk about, for I had been dreading this moment since I opened my haggis hole and told her to look up the story of Ewan McGonagall.

  “Come out here! Right now!”

  I crept from the Pink Horror.

  She stared down at me, hands on her hips, and said, “The brownie in the story is you, right?”

  “No, not me. It was my da.”

  “All right, it was your father. But you’re the one who carries the curse now, right?”

  I lowered my head. “I had hoped it was over,” I mumbled.

  “Why would you hope that if you’re still bound by the stupid thing yourself?”

  “Because it’s been nearly a hundred years since the Curse of the McGonagalls has struck. And it has never struck in a house where I served.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It only strikes the men of the line, and in the time since I became Curse Bearer, I have never been assigned to a house with a man in it. Also, some magic can’t cross the water.”

  I realized how weak that last sounded even as I said it.

  “So what, exactly, is this curse?”

  “Wait here,” I said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just into the Pink Horror to get something. I’ll be right out.”

  When I returned, Alex was sitting at her desk. I could almost see rays of anger shooting out of her head.

  “Get up here,” she demanded, pointing to the desk.

  I scrambled up.

  “What have you got?”

  I handed her a scroll of parchment. “Here it is—the curse itself.”

  She made a face. “I can’t read something that tiny.”

  “Just take it!”

  She held out her hand and I dropped the scroll into her palm. The minute it landed, it began to grow. She yelped in surprise but didn’t move.

  When it stopped growing, I said, “Take off the ribbon and read for yourself.”

  Then I braced myself for what was to follow.

  The Curse of the McGonagalls

  Now do I, Greer M’Greer, Queen of Scotland’s Enchanted Realm, lay this curse upon Ewan McGonagall and the men of all the generations of his line that shall follow.

  You shall long to be poets. Your hearts shall burn with a fierce desire for words that take wing, phrases that lift the spirit, and verse that stirs the soul. But until the day you or one of your descent makes good for the cruel pain you have wrought against me with your till-­now silver tongue, never shall fair line of verse, nor pleasing rhyme, nor elegant phrase pass your lips nor flow from your pen. Until all is made right, you shall be plagued with thoughts of gold that escape as words of lead. Your poetry shall be as the braying of asses, your rhymes a discordant clanging that assaults the ear when heard and affronts the eye when read. Your dearest thoughts, when expressed in any but the simplest terms, shall bring naught but mock and jest.

  And all this I declare but fair punishment for the way you used your silver tongue and sweet words to do the wrong you’ve done me. And only when what is now lost by me to a McGonagall male is returned to me by a male of the same line shall this curse be lifted.

  So say I, Greer M’Greer, Queen of Shadows.

  And so shall it be!

  Wednesday, October 28 (part 2)

  Alex put down the paper and stared at me in horror. Then she whispered, “You’re the reason Dad quit his job, aren’t you?”

  I hung my head.

  “And why Bennett is writing ghastly poems and moping around like
a lovesick loon.”

  “Aye, that would be my fault, too.”

  “Angus, you can’t stay. You just can’t!”

  I nodded. “I understand. I’ll pack my things and wait until it’s dark. Then I’ll go.”

  “Can you really do that? You kept telling me you had no choice.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to leave a home before.”

  “Well, you left to bring that report to me at school.”

  “Yes, but I was planning to come back. This is different. I’ll be trying to leave forever.”

  Alex nodded and said, “I’ll walk with you when you go.” She sounded a bit sad, which touched me at the heart.

  As for me, I am filled with frets and terror. I have packed my things, such as they are. I even went to say good-bye to the cat.

  Now I can do naught but sit and wait.

  In an hour I will leave, or at least try to.

  I know not what will happen.

  10/29 (Thurs.)

  I’m afraid Angus is dying!

  It was so horrible what happened when he tried to leave last night. Now I don’t know what to do. It’s not like I can take him to a doctor or anything.

  He’s still breathing, so that’s good, but I can’t wake him up.

  I’m so scared!

  Date Uncertain

  This is the first time I have felt strong enough to write since my failed attempt to leave.

  It was bad, even worse than I had feared.

  Here is what happened. Half an hour after it grew dark, Alex said to her mother, “I need to go to Tiana’s to do our homework—it’s a team thing.”

  Mrs. Carhart made a bit of a fuss, but Alex talked her into it. It was cool outside, so she wore her big coat.

  I was tucked inside one of the pockets.

  Tiana’s house is behind Alex’s, so we left through the back door. As soon as we were outside, Alex lifted me out of her pocket.